Issue #1459      16 June 2010

Government eyes Sydney’s Moore Park for development

Peter Mac

They just can’t resist. Having recently announced their intention to permit development in the State’s National Parks, the NSW government now wants to slice off a huge chunk of Sydney’s Moore Park for the same purpose.

Moore Park lies about two kilometres south-east of Sydney’s central business district, and is about five square kilometres (500 hectares) in area. It was part of Governor Macquarie’s second Sydney Common, and was once the home of the city’s zoo. Only a third of the original Common area still survives as public open land. It’s now a green oasis with mature trees, a most welcome relief from the city’s hectic pace, noise and pollution.

To the west of the park is Surry Hills and South Dowling Street, a major artery. The park is criss-crossed by a number of very busy thoroughfares. Two high schools and public tennis courts are located in the centre of the Park, and a golf course in the southern section. The south-east corner of Moore Park touches the western fringe of its neighbour, the grand Centennial Park.

However, on the eastern side of Moore Park is a very large grassy area that serves as a casual carparking space for the Fox studios complex (formerly the RAS Showground), the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Sydney Football Stadium, all of which lie across Driver Avenue, east of the Park.

And there’s the rub. The legislation that established the Parks Trust (the Moore Park and Centennial Park Trust), protects both of the parks, and a special act of Parliament would be required to use either of them for any purpose other than as a public park.

However, the State government has now confirmed that it wants to transfer part of Moore Park to the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust, which controls both the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) and the Sydney Football Stadium (SFS). This would remove the transferred area from the control of the Parks Trust, and from the protection it enjoys by virtue of the current legislation. The transferred area would, in effect, be open for development.

Public parks under attack

According to a recent letter of protest to the state Premier, the transferred land would comprise almost one third of the Park’s total area, and its intended use is for permanent carparking to serve the cricket and football grounds.

The letter, signed by former State Premier Neville Wran, his wife Jill Wran, former ABC chairman David Hill, former chairman of the Parks Trust, John Niland, and many former senior ALP figures, rejects assurances from the current Premier Kristine Keneally that there would be no loss of open space. It states:

“It would appear that at least 30 percent of the current park is involved. … (The plan) is consistent with the long-held desire of the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground Trust) to manage part of the parklands to advance its own interests. (It would be used primarily for) SCG/SFS members.

“The Chairman of the SCG is reported as saying that they want the parklands to increase the available car parking for sporting and other events, which suggests that an immediate consequence could be the building of permanent car parking spaces over what is currently green open space.”

In fact, the SCG authorities may not limit their ambitions to building a car park. If the 30 percent of the Park (one and a half square kilometres) transferred to them was open space, they could possibly build a massive car park, plus a brand new football venue equivalent in size to the existing stadium.

Twilight of the Gods, ALP style

The NSW Labor government has established a tradition of making its more odious business deals in secret, then releasing as little accurate information as possible, combined with a maximum of spin. A former Labor government tried unsuccessfully to transfer land from Moore Park in 1998. This time the public knew little about the government’s intentions until publication of the letter of protest.

The Parks Trust has lodged a Freedom of Information request to find out how much of the Park the government wants to transfer. According to one report it includes the very profitable golf course and tennis courts, which currently fund the activities of the Parks Trust. John Walker, the Trust’s chairman, recently declared: “It is a scandal that a vested interest group appears privy to the contents of a proposal to Cabinet to assign public lands to itself, when neither the custodians of the land nor the public have access to the proposal”.

The government’s chances of retaining power after the next State elections are virtually nil. Premier Keneally has squandered any chance for a revival of the government’s fortunes with a sequence of outrageous initiatives, the latest of which is the Moore Park proposal. It appears that the government is now throwing caution to the wind and is trying to get as much of its program as possible through parliament as a pre-election fait accompli.

Cricket and football are really big business, as demonstrated by the current over-the-top commercial hard sell of the soccer world cup match in South Africa, and the state government is manifestly keen to serve the interests of the sporting industry. However, it is now blatantly obvious that the Moore Park proposal is against the public interest, and that it would set a precedent for similar government initiatives in Centennial Park – or any other parks in NSW.

But there is some hope of forestalling the proposal. Even the recalcitrant NSW Labor government may feel obliged to defer to the ALP’s own senior leading lights, whose signatures on the letter of protest demonstrate their revulsion at the stench of corruption wafting from the government’s offices in Macquarie Street.  

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